Archive for May 31st, 2008

If you ever wondered about the importance of scorecards, they mean a whole lot in the financial services industry. The Economist says that investment banks have entire dedicated teams working on gathering the necessary information and challenging rivals’ positions. As you may know from my postings, we spend a lot of time helping companies decide which rankings are best to apply for. League tables are superb third-party positioning tools and can sometimes differentiate one company from another among prospects or job candidates.  

The Economist asked the smart question about whether the colossal credit crunch was impacted by some companies’ reckless efforts to win the league tables’ crown. Here is their fun answer:

“Yet to blame league tables for their mishaps feels a bit like accusing the candlestick, not Colonel Mustard.”

According to the article, being at the top of the table does not necessarily translate into market share or even tell you what you need to know about the quality of service. But maybe it does tell you a few things that are not correlatable (is this a word?) or measurable such as whether this is a company culture driven to perform at its very best and wants the world to know about it.  With all the information overload today, these league tables sometimes give outsiders a sense of how the cards are stacked.